Ikerlan S. Coop. (IKERLAN)

IKERLAN is a Spanish private not-for-profit Technology Centre created in 1974, member of IK4 Alliance and a technological R&D actor within the Mondragon Corporation. IKERLAN is a point of reference for innovation, dedicated to advanced technology transfer to industry and comprehensive product development (from concept to implementation) for a wide variety of domains: transportation (railway and vertical), automation, industrial, medical, home appliances, etc. IKERLAN works closely with companies to improve their competitiveness, through the application of technological knowledge to develop innovative products and, on the other hand, new tools and methodologies for implementation in design and production processes. It has a staff of more than 200 qualified researchers and engineers, with experience in interdisciplinary work and capable of tackling complex problems. As a centre of excellence in the transfer of technology, more than 800 R&D projects were completed so far in cooperation with companies developing new products and implementing customised systems in design and manufacturing processes.

Relevant Expertise for the project:

IKERLAN will contribute to MANTIS project with experts from 4 research groups:

The Advanced Manufacturing Technologies Group (AMT), which is formed by 14 people with extensive experience in participation in EU, national and regional research projects, has knowledge in MANTIS related domains such as Business Processes Modeling, Simulation Models, Decision Support
Systems (DSS) and Manufacturing and Logistics Planning. Another important competence brought to the project is a deep knowledge of problems related to companies networks both when they form a supply chain (FP 7 REMPLANET) and when they share resources (FP 6 ECOLEAD). In this sense, AMT provides models, methodologies and tools for a comprehensive and collaborative Supply Network Analysis and Design which will be strengthened through participation in the H2020-FoF-2014-1 C2NET Cloud Collaborative Manufacturing Networks project that has just been accepted by the EC.

The Software Production Technologies Group (SPT), with 12 people forming the research group, is involved in several running EU projects: FP7 MultiPARTES (as coordinator), FP7 MONDO and FP7 DREAMS. SPT provides an extensive set of competences directly related to the domain of MANTIS such as the use of novel techniques, tools and languages for applying IoT in industrial domains (SCADA systems). Also, SPT has a wide experience in smart data acquisition, stream, integration and monitoring including data analytics and modeling applying advanced techniques for data processing such as CEP. BigData techniques and Cloud-based solutions for analysis and prediction in industrial domains with particular focus on Maintenance and Advanced Manufacturing operations are also used. This expertise will be reinforced through participation in the H2020-FoF-2014-1 CREMA Cloud-based Rapid Elastic Manufacturing project recently accepted by the EC.

The Sensors Group experience lies mainly in the development of ad-hoc sensors (wireless sensors, electrochemical sensors for bio-detection modules, SAW sensors, electro-active sensors for pressure sensing, Fiber Bragg Grating sensors), data processing and system integration (smart functions), for their application in products, automated inspection and product and process monitoring. This knowledge has been applied to the development of products in a close relationship with the final clients (Wind turbines, Railway Platforms).

The Embedded Systems (ES) research line, which has been active in ARTEMIS, ECOISE and EPOSS, has a track record of proven national / international R&D projects and projects under contract from different companies that have required to add connectivity and embedded intelligence in their new product developments. During the last years, one of the main research topics in the Communications Area has been Reliable Wireless Communications for Industrial Environments, very relevant for MANTIS and which includes the following research and skills: Wireless channel measurement campaigns in industrial environments for ISM bands (also licensed bands); Wireless channel modeling based on the measured data analysis; and Reliable, Dependable, Real Time and Secure Wireless and industrial communication solutions (i.e. Industrial Ethernet, EtherCat, TTEthernet, Industrial Wireless).

Role in the project:

IKERLAN main contribution to MANTIS will be in WP3 (Smart sensing and data acquisition technologies), WP4 (Analysis and decision making functionalities) and in the Press machine maintenance use case. In relation to the WP3, the IKERLAN’s Sensors and Communications teams will contribute to the project participating in modeling processes for use cases (Task 3.1), sensor selection (Task 3.2), developing required sensing elements (Task 3.3), designing their intelligent functions (task 3.4) and leading the activity concerning communications for harsh environments (Task 3.6).

Likewise, IKERLAN will contribute to WP 4 applying its wide experience in projects where data collection, monitoring, data analysis and design and development of optimisation algorithms focusing its work in the integration of different information sources (Task 4.1), analysis of root cause failures in assets (Task 4.2) and in the identification of assets remaining useful life and assets wear out prediction (Task 4.3). IKERLAN will apply its experience gathered from many technology transfer projects to industrial companies in order to define MANTIS user scenarios requirements (WP 1 – Task 1.2) that meet real companies’ needs and, specifically, those related to the use case 1.3 Press machine maintenance. Also, they will be actively involved in the definition of MANTIS Service Platform both in the platform requirements (WP 1 – Task 1.3) and in the platform architecture development (WP 2 – Task 2.1 and Task 2.2).

Furthermore, IKERLAN will participate in the HMI design and development (WP 5) to include the use case 1.3 Press machine maintenance requirements for defining the HMI scenarios interaction and will be fully involved in demonstration and validation activities (WP 7) of MANTIS developments made in research WPs participating actively in the use-case 1.3: Press machine maintenance belonging to the Task 7.1 Production asset maintenance. Finally, it will participate in WP 8 performing communication and dissemination activities such as papers, conference presentations, preparation of outreach materials, etc. (Task 8.1) and in all exploitation activities (Task 8.2) as in Task 9.2 and Tasks 9.3 related to project management activities.

This project has received funding from the ECSEL Joint Undertaking under grant agreement No 662189. This Joint Undertaking receives support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and Spain, Finland, Denmark, Belgium, Netherlands, Portugal, Italy, Austria, United Kingdom, Hungary, Slovenia, Germany.